Brothers
by gammaxmen80
Summary: The God of Thunder mourns his brother in the wake of Siege.


**Thor:**

**Brothers**

The Mighty Thor is the property of Marvel Comics. I do not own it, neither am I making money on this.

I did not know when he had turned so... dark.

In our youth, I always saw him as a faithful companion, a true brother. It mattered not that we were not of blood.

He always made me laugh with his pranks, which always turned on him.

We rode together, and we raced together forth to the Rainbow Bridge and back to the palace.

Others had warned me of the darkness that lurked in him. But I did not see it myself. I saw only my brother.

When we grew into men, we fought and bled together, he and I, against the forces of evil.

Until the day he became one of them.

In the early days of our eons-long war, I made fruitless appeals to him, to turn away from the dark path he had chosen. He time and again rebuffed them.

Though I had come to despise what he had become, he was my brother and I loved him still.

I have tried and failed to understand why he would become one of Asgard's greatest enemies. Nay, her greatest threat of all.

As the Day of Ragnarok had proven.

We had battled countless centuries, until the day our father, Odin, imprisoned him into one of Asgard's great trees. He was to be released only when an Asgardian would shed a tear for his plight. Though I felt sorrow, I did not have tears I would give for him. I would later learn from Heimdall that would indeed happen, but not because he did begin to feel sympathy, but rather because of my brother's trickery.

By this time, I had returned to my true self, after a time as a mortal to learn humility, and had taken up a mortal form.

He came to Midgard for vengeance against me, and though my heart was heavy, we began our endless war anew.

We battled on Midgard many times in the past centuries, but it was not as frequent as in the twentieth century, then the twenty-first century.

Though he would never have admitted it, he did one grand deed to be proud of.

He brought heroes together to combat one common threat. It did not matter that _he _was that threat.

It was one of the few times since our childhood years that I found myself grateful to my brother.

Though he had threatened Asgard itself, and Midgard as well many times, though I was duty-bound to battle and defeat him, I could not find it with myself to hate him, no matter what depths of villainy he had sunk to. And for a reason I did not know, that only made his hatred for me burn even brighter.

And so it went between him and I. We had a truce, when our father was killed in battle against Asgard. And even he did not complain when I took up the throne.

Sadly, the truce was only brief.

Then came Ragnarok.

Though he was responsible for the end of all things, I had his company through the end, as unwilling as it was on his part.

And then I woke up. I gathered my brother Asgardians once I found them and brought them to our reborn homeland.

I had no intention of resurrecting him, as much as I had wanted to. But I should have known he'd have found a way to return, in a female form I did not realize belonged to Sif until it was nearly too late.

Still, it was a time for rebirths, so I decided to give him… her… the chance she had the right to.

I was disappointed to learn that she had wasted it by scheming once more.

I did not have proof, but I knew she had a hand in my battle with my father's father, Bor, and then my exile.

I only had suspicions, nothing more. Though I was angry, indeed, I was still disappointed.

The next time I saw him, he was once more in his true form. And I was told that he had allied himself with Doctor Doom. A little man who believed himself a god to be worshipped.

Then came the Siege of Asgard.

Norman Osborn, another little mortal with the same delusion as Doom, dared to attack the Realm Eternal.

I suspected, as any Asgardian, that my brother's hand was in this. Once again, it seemed that he brought madness and mischief to Asgard.

I did battle with the mortal called Sentry, his mind having been poisoned with madness, and he was responsible for the death of the God of War, Ares. Among those crimes, a death of a god was injustice enough.

I saw my brother attempting to do battle with the mad beast that had taken over his mortal mind.

I saw him slain, his body burst into ashes. But at the end, at the moment of his death, I saw something in his eyes I had never thought I would again. Never dared hope to.

I saw my brother.

Though he was wicked, and many times, vile, he died nobly, and my brother.

Fare thee well, Loki, Son of Odin, Brother of Thor.

I will miss you.

END


End file.
